The introduction to any piece of formal writing is vital, as it’s the gateway to the body of the piece, and it sets the tone of the rest of the piece. Sometimes, composing a good one can be a little tough, so we’ve come up with some handy guidelines to help you write an effective introduction for your research paper.

Understand the purpose of an introduction

Before you can write an excellent introduction, you need to fully understand its purpose. Firstly, it provides context for the rest of the paper by discussing what other research has already been carried out in the specific field. Secondly, it gives the rationale behind the piece of work, explaining why the study was carried out. Thirdly, it highlights all the limitations of the study and the paper. Fourthly, it explains any assumptions that the author of the study made when conducting the study and writing the piece. Finally, it clearly states the hypothesis being tested or the question being studied.

Collect your information

Now that you know what you’re required to include in the piece, you can start gathering all the relevant information. Try to ensure that you have everything you need, so that you won’t have to go looking for things later on. While you’re collecting what you need, make sure that it’s all correct, as it’s best to do this before you start the writing process.

Arrange your information in the correct order and start writing

After you’ve collected all the information you need, you should arrange it in the correct order. This is an important step because research paper introductions are meant to follow a very specific order. Once you have everything in the right order, you can actually write your introduction.

Evaluate and proofread your work

When you’ve written the introduction, you need to spend some time evaluating it to see that it contains all the relevant information and meets all the requirements of a good piece of writing. You may find that you need to edit it a little, so do that if necessary. After you’ve evaluated your work, you should ask someone else to proofread it for you. Ideally, they should be familiar with the field and will be able to point out any errors or omissions. Even if they aren’t familiar with the work, they may spot grammatical or spelling errors that you missed.